The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is creating a new task force. Its goal: to examine what they say are bad naturalization cases, according to Director L. Francis Cissna’s June announcement.
As a result, the organization expects to hire dozens of lawyers and immigration officers in the coming weeks to find U.S. citizens they say should not have been naturalized, to revoke their citizenship, and then eventually deport them.

#EndFGMToday Applauds ICE’s Efforts to Protect 200 Million Girls and Women Worldwide Who Are Subjected to This Brutal—and Illegal—Practice

WASHINGTON, D.C.—U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is working to combat the global and domestic scourge of female genital mutilation (FGM) by offering awareness programs at the nation’s largest and busiest airports.

The national #EndFGMToday initiative and its leader, international child advocate and attorney Elizabeth Yore, is applauding ICE’s efforts.

“If ICE is committed to conducting these awareness events in the busiest airports during the summer months, we know that what we’ve thought all along is true,” Yore said. “Thousands of little girls are at risk to have their genitals mutilated, either right here in the U.S. or taken to other countries to have the physically and emotionally scarring procedure known as ‘vacation cutting’ forced upon them. If FGM wasn't a major problem in the U.S., why would this dedicated department conduct training at four major airports where perpetrators are potentially shuttling girls in and out of the country?”

The ICE FGM events have the goal to bring awareness to the illegal practice of female genital mutilation and to educate people about the serious penalties that exist under U.S. law for engaging in this horrific practice.

The outreach efforts at the airports were an extension of Operation Limelight USA, a pilot program designed by HSI’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center to bring awareness to FGM and deter its practice. The program is a U.S.-based version of the United Kingdom’s Operation Limelight at Heathrow Airport. HSI aims to continue expanding outreach at additional international departure points to areas where FGM is commonly practiced to ensure travelers are aware that it is a crime under U.S. law.

“Removing or cutting the genital organs of a female child is a federal crime regardless of whether it’s done inside the U.S. or the child is transported outside the country for that purpose,” said HSI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Nick Annan in an ICE statement. “FGM is irreversible and HSI, along with its law enforcement partners, will seek prosecution of anyone subject to U.S. law it finds attempting to engage in its illegal practice.”

As part of Operation Limelight USA, special agents who complete FGM-related training speak to passengers flying to or from high-risk countries, offer informational brochures and identify potential victims and violators of FGM. These discussions both educate passengers on the consequences of involvement in FGM and provide passengers with a means to refer cases or receive victim assistance.

ICE reports that FGM provides no health benefits and, in fact, can cause severe health effects—significant bleeding and acute pain, as well as life-long consequences of chronic infection, childbirth complications, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and even death. The airport events were held at the beginning of summer vacation when girls may be sent from the United States to other countries to undergo FGM, or “vacation cutting,” as Yore also noted.

ICE asks that anyone with information about victims or perpetrators of female genital mutilation call the toll-free ICE tip line at (866) 347-2423 or complete the ICE online tip form.

According to a 2016 estimation by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), around 200 million women living today have undergone this procedure. Yore added that FGM is recognized by both the World Health Organization and the U.N. as a human rights violation, and the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 513,000 girls and women are at risk of FGM in the United States.

Shifting Public Views on Legal Immigration into the U.S.Many unaware that most immigrants in the U.S. are here legally

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 28, 2018) – While there has been considerable attention on illegal immigration into the U.S. recently, opinions about legal immigration have undergone a long-term change. Support for increasing the level of legal immigration has risen, while the share saying legal immigration should decrease has fallen, according to a new national survey by Pew Research Center.

The survey finds that 38% say legal immigration into the United States should be kept at its present level, while 32% say it should be increased and 24% say it should be decreased.

Since 2001, the share of Americans who favor increased legal immigration into the U.S. has risen 22 percentage points (from 10% to 32%), while the share who support a decrease has declined 29 points (from 53% to 24%).

The shift is mostly driven by changing views among Democrats. The share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who say legal immigration into the U.S. should be increased has doubled since 2006, from 20% to 40%.

Republicans’ views also have changed, though more modestly. The share of Republicans and Republican leaners who say legal immigration should be decreased has fallen 10 percentage points since 2006, from 43% to 33%.

Still, about twice as many Republicans (33%) as Democrats (16%) support cutting legal immigration into the U.S.

The new survey, which was largely conducted before the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border involving immigrant children being separated from their parents, finds deep and persistent partisan divisions in a number of attitudes toward immigrants, as well as widespread misperceptions among the public overall about the share of the immigrant population in the U.S. that is in this country illegally:

Fewer than half of Americans know that most immigrants in the U.S. are here legally. Just 45% of Americans say that most immigrants living in the U.S. are here legally; 35% say most immigrants are in the country illegally, while 6% volunteer that about half are here legally and half illegally and 13% say they don’t know. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, lawful immigrants accounted for about three-quarters of the foreign-born population in the United States.

Most feel sympathy toward unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. Nearly-seven-in-ten (69%) are very or somewhat sympathetic toward immigrants who are in the United States illegally. That view has changed little since 2014, when a surge of unaccompanied children from Central America attempted to enter the U.S. at the border. An overwhelming share of Democrats (86%) say they are sympathetic toward immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, compared with about half of Republicans (48%).

Fewer say granting legal status to unauthorized immigrants is a “reward.” Just 27% of Americans say that giving people who are in the U.S. illegally a way to gain legal status is like rewarding them for doing something wrong. More than twice as many (67%) say they don’t think of it this way. Since 2015, the share saying that providing legal status for those in the U.S. illegally is akin to a “reward” for doing something wrong has declined 9 percentage points.

Most Americans do not think undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit serious crimes.Large majorities of Americans say that undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. are not more likely than U.S. citizens to commit serious crimes (65% say this) and that undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs citizens don’t want (71% say this). These opinions, which also are divided along partisan lines, are virtually unchanged since 2016.

Most people who encounter immigrants who do not speak English well aren’t bothered by this. Most Americans say they often (47%) or sometimes (27%) come into contact with immigrants who speak little or no English. Among those who say this, just 26% say it bothers them, while 73% say it does not. The share saying they are bothered by immigrants speaking little or no English has declined by 12 percentage points since 2006 (from 38% to 26%) and 19 points since 1993 (from 45%).

The survey was conducted June 5-12 among 2,002 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for results based on the full sample.

While there is a distinct month-to-month seasonality in the number of families and unaccompanied children picked up by the Border Patrol attempting to enter the country between official ports of entry, there is nothing particularly unusual about the number that have been arrested so far this year.
Because the age of each individual is recorded in these detailed data, it is now possible to separately track the number of adults arriving with children over the past three and a half years. While numbers have increased in recent months, they are far from reaching record levels. A time series graph displaying the number of adults arriving with children is shown in Figure 1.
In fact, the number of adults apprehended with children so far during FY 2018 (23,162) is still 14.5 percent lower than the number of adults arrested with children during the same seven-month period in FY 2017 (27,080). The number of unaccompanied children arrested by the Border Patrol this year is also down as compared with the same period during FY 2017.Further, in April 2018, the same month that Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the "zero tolerance" enforcement policy in response to the alleged crisis on the border, there were a total of 4,537 adults arriving with children, a relatively small number compared to the 24,876 adults arrested without children that same month.

Today we want to center and amplify the voices of those who have always been the driving force of the campaign. The families who have been affected by the Berks County Detention Center.

They are the experts of this prison and their message is clear. No family, no person, no child should be incarcerated at Berks or any other family detention center. That is why Governor Tom Wolf must #ShutDownBerks NOW!

Listen to their messages right at the links below and share with your networks. A huge thank you to Michelle Angela Ortiz/ Artist for her ongoing work with these families and for these videos.

About the Families
Sofia - Sofia was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with her 14 year old son for 648 days.

Lorena - Lorena was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with her 3 year old son for 663 days.Delmy - Delmy was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with her 7 year old son for 754 days.

Waddah - Waddah was detained at the Berks County Detention Center with his 14 year old daughter for 6 months.

These videos are apart of the Familias Separadas Project, a project created by artist MichelleAngela Ortiz. The project is a series of temporary site-specific public art works mark locations and documents stories of immigrant families affected by detention and deportations in Pennsylvania. Ortiz is currently working on Phase 2 of her project. Since March 2017, Ortiz has interviewed mothers and children formerly detained for close to 2 years at the Berks Detention Center.

The three mothers featured were part of the fourteen families that were detained at Berks for more than 2 years. During their time in detention the mothers organized labor and hunger strikes as they fought for their freedom. 10 families were deported back to their home country returning to the violence they were fleeing, and 4 families were released in the United States still fighting against their possible deportation and living through the trauma of being detained.

We want to thank these families for their unending strength and commitment to all of those seeking freedom. It is a honor to have them share their stories with us.

In Solidarity,
The Shut Down Berks Coalition

The Shut Down Berks Coalition is a group of organizations, grassroots groups, churches and individuals fighting to close the Berks family prison in Pennsylvania and end the practice of imprisoning immigrant families in the U.S.